Well hey there I'm Emma from mmmEnglish
and I'm so excited that you're here today because I'm gonna share
a simple task that you can use to increase your English vocabulary
every day so if that's what you're here for, you're here to expand
your vocabulary, to learn new words,
then I really encourage you to take the ten to fifteen minutes
every day to practise this process
that I'm about to teach you in today's lesson.
It's an incredibly effective method to help you learn,
to remember the new words that you learn and to
build on the words that you already know.
Let's dive straight in and get started!
Learning and remembering new words can be tricky
because your brain is constantly processing new information
and it's trying to work out what's essential
and what's not. What do I need to keep and what can I get rid of?
Think of your brain as a storeroom,
if the information is really important it's going to be on the shelf
that is easy to reach.
If it's less important or maybe it's not needed as often,
it probably goes up on the top shelf
at the back, a little to the right.
It's there but it's pretty hard to reach.
So let's take that analogy to your English conversations.
So when you're speaking and you get stuck,
you can't remember the word, it's because it's not right there
on the easy to access shelf.
To remember
all of these new words that you're learning and to draw on them
when you need them,
well there's a few little tricks that you can use
when you're practising and you're learning these new words.
The first is learning them in association with words
that you already know.
The second is by introducing
different senses to the way that you're learning
so not just looking at a word and seeing it
but hearing it, touching something, maybe drawing it.
All of these different things help us to remember
and make associations with the new words that we're learning.
Now in my opinion, the best tool for doing all of this is
a vocabulary map.
You might have heard of a mind map before, maybe even
you've used them at school but vocabulary maps are very similar.
If you haven't already used them to study and to learn new words
then you should definitely keep watching this lesson
and try out this technique for yourself.
I'm going to show you exactly how to start this process and to
build on your practice in this lesson.
You need to start with a root word.
Now a root word is a word or a word part
that is the base of any of your new words.
So we create new words by adding prefixes and suffixes
to the root word.
Can you think of any root words yourself that we could start with?
How about act?
So we can create more words by adding to the word act.
Actor.
Action.
Inaction.
Activity.
Activist.
We can kind of keep going like this, right?
The really cool thing is that if you look for and you recognise
the root word then it's going to help you to start working out
the meanings of new words that you haven't seen before
when you start associating them with the ones that you do know.
Now our root word is the best place to start with our word map
or our vocabulary map.
We just want to put it right in the middle and then we start
building from there
and then we start adding suffixes and prefixes and creating
new words, exploring new words and these are all
part of the word family.
Let's explore with the verb write, okay?
So it's our root word then we can start adding to it with
writer and
written or writing, our different verb forms.
You just want to start simply, start with the words
that you already know
and then you can start doing a little research
to add new ones or add to them and help
your word map to grow.
This one's cool.
We started doing a little bit of research and we found
writer's block.
Now if you don't know what writer's block is, that's great!
Look it up!
But you can also add definitions and example sentences right here
on the word map so that you can see it, remember it, practise it,
associate it to the other words that you've got on the page.
That said I am trying to teach you a technique that you can use
every day to improve your vocabulary.
So let's just say you've only got ten minutes to do this
so that you can make it happen, you can build that habit
and do it every day. You don't need to
exhaust an entire list of words associated with write,
you know it's okay if you just get a couple down and you start
this process, you don't need to research until you find
every last one.
So once you've built out your word family, you want to start
thinking about some common collocations.
Collocations are words that are often used together in English
like it's really common to hear fast food.
It's not common to hear quick food.
We throw a party in English, we don't make a party.
These are examples of collocations and learning the words
that are often used with your root word
and the words that you're exploring in the word family
is going to help you to sound much more natural
when you're using them yourself, much more
like a native English speaker.
So let's see
how we can use the verb write. We use write with a noun,
we write something like a story, a blog post,
an article, a report but we also use write with an adverb.
We write
beautifully or we write poorly
or enthusiastically.
We also often see write with prepositions. We write
about something or we write for someone
or for an organisation.
So again at this step, we want to start by writing down
what we already know and then go exploring, finding collocations
and other words that are often used with it
and adding to our word map.
Now I've included a couple of really useful
collocations dictionaries down in the description below
so as you're exploring words that often get used with your word,
it's a really, really great tool to use to start expanding
on what you already know.
Now because we're focusing on write as a verb then we might also
think of some phrasal verbs that use write.
We write off.
We write down.
We write up something.
And if you're feeling up to it you might even add an idiom or two
that use write as well just to explore different types
of phrases and expressions with this word.
It's nothing to write home about.
This is a great one! We use it to say that something is
not very impressive, it's a bit mediocre.
Okay next step.
Which words have a similar meaning to write?
We're going to take a look at some synonyms now.
Can you think of any?
Record.
Copy.
Pen.
Print.
Draft.
Scribble. We take notes,
we compose
and really simply, we communicate.
So learning and playing with all these different ways that you can
express yourself in English is gonna make
the words that you choose and the way that you sound
so much more interesting and colourful
and I bet you didn't realise just how many different ways
you can express the same idea in English, right?
Right?
Write? Am I right?
So naturally, the next idea to explore is antonyms,
words that have the opposite meaning.
Now really I recommend this step only for my
higher-level students.
If you're a new student or you're just getting back to your English
after a long break then I recommend that you just take your time,
focus on the words that are really closely connected to each other.
So if you're up for the challenge, let's add even more detail
to our vocabulary map. We can go further.
So if write means
to create something, to put it on paper,
what words would mean the opposite of this?
Erase.
Delete.
Ignore.
By focusing on the antonyms, we're taking the attention
away from the literal meaning of the word so
erase directly relates to writing because it means
to remove written work
and delete is to remove digital written work, right?
And if we write when we're paying attention to information
then the opposite of that would be to ignore,
to not write, to not record, right?
And the last step. If you're anything like me drawing visual cues
can help you to remember new words and to associate them with
others that you're learning or even just to remember the
context in which they're used.
And you don't have to be an artist, nobody is expecting
brilliant work.
You just need to draw something that will remind you about
what that word means.
So for write-off I've drawn a car because write-off usually means
that something is so badly damaged that it can't be repaired,
like a car when it's been in a bad accident
and this is how it's often used.
I've used a musical note for the word compose because
compose is a verb that is often used with music.
The artist writes music or they compose it.
And for delete, well it might help you to remember the word
if you draw the icon or the button from your computer keyboard.
These visual elements can help you to remember the words
or to associate them with the others that you're learning as well.
Okay so now I have a little challenge for you if you're up to it.
I'm gonna set a root word right here and I want you to take
the process that you just learned today,
create your own vocabulary map
and try this out for yourself.
The root word that I'm setting for you is to laugh.
Now I want to see your word maps okay?
So if you complete this challenge and you do your own
vocabulary map, take a picture, share it with me on Instagram.
I've created my own version of a word map as well
so after you've created yours, you can check out mine
and you can compare.
And that's it! One really simple and enjoyable activity
that you can use every day for around ten or fifteen minutes
to help you continue to grow your
vocabulary, to explore new words,
to associate them with the ones that you already know.
It really is going to open up a whole new world of words for you.
If you enjoyed today's lesson, make sure you give the video a like
or you let me know down in the comments, all of that helps.
And if you want to keep practising with me right now,
let's check out this lesson together. I'll see you in there!